Ethical Principles for Museum Collections
18 June 2026
CIMAM's Museum Watch Committee (MW) is launching a new research initiative to develop a framework of ethical principles to guide building and maintaining a museum collection through processes of acquisition, accessioning, safeguarding, and caretaking, which can translate across a wide range of sociocultural contexts and political conditions.
This new initiative is motivated by widespread concerns around recent cases that have highlighted the precarity of collections, private and public, which have been built with care and expertise but have faced a sudden change in their governance or ownership without proper input from those responsible for their stewardship or from the communities that benefit most from their integrity and accessibility.
Collections of modern and contemporary art have particular challenges. To give a few examples: artists who created the works in these collections may still be alive and hold moral rights. In case artists are no longer living, their living descendents or representatives may have inherited rights related to the works. In cases of donation or bequest, the donors or their descendents may hold certain conditions, rights, or expectations.
Furthermore, funding sources and governance structures vary widely across the world. Unexpected changes to or undermining of the legitimacy of a collection may be attributed to conditions that are deemed or alleged to be untranslatable or incomprehensible in other contexts. Contextual differences may be instrumentalised for political or other purposes.
This project proposes to create a lexicon of terms and definitions, using case studies of successes as well as challenges, in hopes of making a toolbox that could be as widely applicable as practicably possible.
The preliminary list of terms and definitions to be addressed in this initiative include: accessioning, acquisition, approval, bequest, by-laws, collection, commission, committee, conflict of interest, custody, deaccessioning, deed, dispersal, donation, due diligence, export, gift, governance, integrity, license, long-term loan, ownership, patrimony, policy, proposal, provenance, public access, restriction, stewardship, title, and transparency.
CIMAM, as an Affiliated Organisation of the International Council of Museums (ICOM), has embedded the ICOM Code of Ethics for Museums at the core of its mission since its establishment, recognising it as the principal ethical framework for advancing professional standards in modern and contemporary art museums.
Museum professionals are invited to participate in this research initiative by contributing their perspectives, insights, and professional experience.
CIMAM Research Assistant: Sibulele Mabe
Sibulele Mabe is the Research Assistant for CIMAM's Museum Watch Glossary on Ethical Principles for Collection Management
Sibulele Mabe is a Doctoral Fellow with the UK-SA Bilateral Research Chair in Culture and Technics at the Centre for Humanities Research (CHR), University of the Western Cape. She is also a Data Curator at the South African Environmental Observation Network (SAEON), supporting the stewardship and curation of environmental research data.
Sibulele brings over seven years of experience spanning South Africa's visual arts, museum, and cultural heritage sectors. Her career has included roles with the Investec Cape Town Art Fair, A4 Arts Foundation, Worldart Gallery, and the Association for Visual Arts, as well as more recent work in parliamentary reporting. She has worked across collections, exhibitions, research, and digital curation, bringing together expertise in cultural heritage, digital infrastructures, and museum ethics.